1968 A Year to Remember

Wednesday 11th October 2017

In January 1968 a surprise attack by the North Vietnamese, known as the Tet Offensive convinced many Americans that the war was not going to end very soon.

Large scale opposition flared against the administration and its policies. Federal troops put down race riots while bitter protests erupted on campuses in the USA.

In Paris in May it was a “social revolution”. In Germany a student movement driven by Rudi Dutschke, (himself anassassination target) reached fever pitch.

Two extraordinary champions for change, Martin Luther King and Senator Robert F Kennedy were both brutally assassinated.

The Mexico Olympics provided the iconic moment for 1968 with Tommie Smith and John Carlos’ black gloved fists at the ceremony.

A search for meaning in Space developed with the first full picture of the Earth coming back from Apollo 8 while space traveller, Barbarella, caused a stir in the cinema, HAL the beginning of the computer age in Kubrick’s 2001 and Charlton Heston’s dramatic realisation in Planet of the Apes were also signs of change.

Aretha Franklin hit the scene with Think, Mary Hopkins iconic hit Those Were the Days dominated the airwaves across the world, and the anthemic Born to be Wild by Steppenwolf and Arthur Brown’s Fire a backdrop to the times.

The world was changing. The space age was arriving and the dawn of a new era was upon us.